Order No. 227 - Reactions
Order No. 227 does not mention the experience gained by Trotsky in the Civil War, but refers to the experience of the enemy, who practiced the use of penal battalions. The experience of the enemy, of course, needed to be studied and creatively applied in practice. But the Supreme Commander I.V. Stalin, who during the Civil War was a member of the Revolutionary Military Council of the Republic and the Revolutionary Military Council of a number of fronts, had an idea about the creation of such formations in the Red Army.
Marshal of the Soviet Union A.M. Vasilevsky, evaluating order No. 227, writes in the book “The Work of All Life”: “This order immediately attracted the attention of the entire personnel of the Armed Forces. I was an eyewitness of how soldiers in units and subunits heard him, officers and generals studied him. Order No. 227 is one of the most powerful documents of the war years in terms of the depth of patriotic content, in terms of the degree of emotional intensity ... I, like many other generals, saw some sharpness and categorical assessments of the order, but they were justified by a very harsh and anxious time. In the order, we were primarily attracted by its social and moral content. He drew attention to himself with the severity of the truth, the impartiality of the conversation between the people's commissar and the Supreme Commander-in-Chief I.V. Stalin with Soviet soldiers, from an ordinary soldier to an army commander. Reading it each of us thought about whether we give all our strength to the struggle. We realized that the cruelty and categorical demands of the order came in the name of the Motherland, the people, and it was important not what penalties would be introduced, although this mattered, but that it raised the consciousness of the soldiers' responsibility for the fate of their socialist Fatherland. And those disciplinary measures that were introduced by the order had already ceased to be an indispensable, urgent necessity even before the Soviet troops went over to the counteroffensive near Stalingrad and encircled the Nazi group on the banks of the Volga. that he raised the awareness of the soldiers' responsibility for the fate of their socialist Fatherland. And those disciplinary measures that were introduced by the order had already ceased to be an indispensable, urgent necessity even before the Soviet troops went over to the counteroffensive near Stalingrad and encircled the Nazi group on the banks of the Volga. that he raised the awareness of the soldiers' responsibility for the fate of their socialist Fatherland. And those disciplinary measures that were introduced by the order had already ceased to be an indispensable, urgent necessity even before the Soviet troops went over to the counteroffensive near Stalingrad and encircled the Nazi group on the banks of the Volga."
Marshal of the Soviet Union G.K. Zhukov in his “Memoirs and Reflections” noted: “In some places panic moods and violations of military discipline reappeared in the troops. In an effort to stop the fall in the morale of the troops, I.V. Stalin issued Order No. 227 on July 28, 1942. This order introduced tough measures to combat alarmists and violators of discipline, and strongly condemned "retreat" moods. It said that an iron law for active troops should be the requirement "Not a step back!". The order was backed up by intensified party-political work among the troops.”
During the Great Patriotic War, the attitude towards Order No. 227 was ambiguous, as evidenced by the documents of that time. So, in a special message from the head of the Special Department of the NKVD of the Stalingrad Front, Senior Major of State Security N.N. Selivanovsky, sent on August 8, 1942 to the Deputy People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the USSR, Commissar of State Security of the 3rd rank V.S. Abakumov, it was emphasized: “Among the command staff, the order was correctly understood and evaluated. However, among the general upsurge and correct assessment of the order, a number of negative, anti-Soviet defeatist sentiments are manifested among individual unstable commanders ... ". Similar facts were cited in the report of the head of the political department of the Volkhov Front, Brigadier Commissar K. Kalashnikov, dated August 6, 1942, to the head of the Main Political Directorate of the Red Army.
After the issuance of Order No. 227, measures were taken to bring it to the attention of the personnel, to form and determine the procedure for the use of penal and barrage units and units. On July 29, the head of the Main Political Directorate of the Workers 'and Peasants' Red Army (RKKA) A.S. Shcherbakov demanded that the heads of the political departments of the fronts and districts and the heads of the political departments of the armies "personally make sure that the order of the People's Commissar is immediately brought to the attention of the units and subunits, read out and explained to all personnel of the Red Army." In turn, the People's Commissar of the Navy, Admiral of the Fleet N.G. Kuznetsov, in Directive No. 360/sh of July 30, ordered the commanders of the fleets and flotillas to accept Order No. 227 "for execution and leadership." July 31 People's Commissar of Justice N.M. Rychkov and USSR Prosecutor K.P. Gorshenin signed Directive No. 1096,
Even before the publication of order No. 227, the first penal company was created in the 42nd Army of the Leningrad Front on July 25, 1942. On July 28, on the day of signing Order No. 227, 5 separate penal companies were created in the active army, on July 29 - 3 separate penal battalions and 24 separate penal companies, on July 30 - 2 separate penal battalions and 29 separate penal companies, and on July 31 - 19 separate penal companies. The Baltic and Black Sea fleets, the Volga and Dnieper military flotillas had their own penal companies and platoons.
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